YESTERDAY I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL FROM FRIEND TOM KRANAWITTER @ Speakeasyideas.com. Thought it well-worth repeating here at Webutante with his permission. Thanks, Tom, and your fine team there in Denver:
Thanks again Tom. So much for term limits, thanks to McCain!AUGUST, 2018, was marked by the death of two prominent Americans: Aretha Franklin and Senator John McCain.
We knew neither Ms. Franklin nor Senator McCain, personally, so we have little to say about their personalities behind closed doors. We merely offer a prayer for each that their souls be guided by eternal light.
THE SENATOR
John McCain had only one employer his entire life: The United States government. He served honorably in the U.S. Navy, during which service he was brutally tortured in captivity in Vietnam, a nightmare most of us cannot and don't want to imagine.
John McCain then spent the bulk of his adult life, almost four decades, as a member of the United States Congress, elected to two terms in the House of Representatives and six terms in the U.S. Senate.
While in the Senate, he mastered the art of cronyism—providing special government favors, waivers, preferential treatment, and subsidies for his business friends, all paid with money that was taken from others.
He also did more than any member of Congress in the last century to ensure that all incumbent members of Congress have decisive advantages over non-incumbent challengers. Aided by John McCain’s campaign finance law, incumbent reelection rates for members of Congress in recent years have reached as high as 97%.
John McCain and his political allies, both Republicans and Democrats, made it a crime for ordinary citizens to help non-incumbent friends running for elected office, beyond small dollar limits.
The justification was that there’s “too much money in politics,” meaning those in government could not resist the temptation of money. The solution proposed by John McCain? More government control over what citizens do with their own property. His was a life of using government force to command millions of fellow citizens.
Meanwhile, incumbents enjoy widespread name recognition and wide media coverage anytime they want it, simply because they are part of the government, an advantage almost no challengers can overcome. Together, John McCain and his allies effectively transformed incumbent members of Congress into a permanent political class more entrenched now than ever before in American history.
John McCain died recently from a terrible disease, while still in office. It is right to offer condolences to his grieving family who watched his health decline. And, because of Senator McCain, almost all members of Congress today are far more likely to retire or die in office from old age or sickness than to lose an election. Ever.
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